Random writing

I’ve made it to day 20 of daily blogging! I love to go to my stat insights page and see all the blocks for February filled in because it makes me feel so accomplished. That and getting my weekly Grammarly Insights email that tells me how many words I’ve written and the number of unique words I used. But the truth is, writing and publishing something every day hasn’t been easy at times (as many of you who have blogged daily for many, many days, months and years can attest – hats off to you). While I am constantly searching my brain and my surroundings for topics to write about, sometimes I come up blank and write about random things as I did yesterday. And guess what, those are my most read and liked posts. Who can figure? The good thing is that daily writing has not felt like a burden.

As I prepare for vacation later this week, I’ve thought I’d try pre-writing and have some posts ready to go next week so I can spend more time writing the book I haven’t been working on lately. I don’t want to spend all my time writing at a computer while my dad is around because he is all about limited screen time (except when it involves baseball and movies). If ever I’m on my phone too much he will definitely pipe up. Also, if I leave writing to early morning or nighttime, it likely won’t happen.

One thing I always look forward to on vacation is the possibility of “sleeping late”. I put this in quotes because the days I can sleep in are the days I wake up early, ready to go. The first day I have to head back to work, I don’t want to get out of bed. It’s a vicious cycle. There are a couple of daily things planned for our trip that will likely involve getting up early though – I want to keep to my running schedule and my dad likes to go to daily mass during Lent which is usually at 9 a.m.

Dad and I are headed to the newish house Jim and I bought about a year and a half ago in preparation for retirement. Retirement?! I may have written about the house before. It was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do and then my mom died the day before we were booked to go look at houses. I thought it was a sign! A few months later, I reluctantly agreed to look at houses and didn’t like anything we saw. And then our agent brought us to a community with lush, mature trees that reminded me of home and a house, that while not on the market, was quaint with beautiful landscaping. I could finally see it. The owner wanted to sell and the rest is history.

It’s funny that Jim and I have only been there a few times together. I’ve gone by myself (I definitely want to do another solo trip). I’ve vacationed there with my older sister and with my father. Last summer we brought our niece who we usually take to Delaware each summer as she’d never been to Disney or Universal before. It was the first time in several years we hadn’t been to Dewey Beach and I think we all missed it so we are heading back there this summer.

In Florida, we’re making a few upgrades to the house as we go and right now we’re midway to opening up the kitchen – the wall has come down but the breakfast bar is not in. The front of the house, where the kitchen is, gets a lot of natural light so I hope it will brighten up the dining area. I love lots of natural light and the living area is a bit of a challenge. There is a covered porch next to the living room and the light doesn’t come in great from that angle. But on the plus side, there is a lanai that is nearly floor to ceiling windows so there is always a room full of sunshine to enjoy.  The front guest bedroom gets the most sun and eventually, I might like to use it as a writing room. I love the covered patio – it’s been something I’ve always wanted and my husband doesn’t want to put one in at our current house. I surrounded it with fairy lights and love to sit outside in the evening. I also love to sit under it during a rainstorm. Can you tell I’m looking forward to this trip?

MC